The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project is a university-chartered research center
associated with the Department of History of The George Washington University

Henry Morgenthau, Jr. (1891- 1967)

Henry
Morgenthau, Jr. was born May 11, 1891 in New York
City, the grandson of German Jewish immigrants and
the child of Henry Morgenthau, a realtor and diplomat,
and Josephine Sykes Morgenthau. Educated in private
schools, young Morgenthau studied architecture and
agriculture for two years at Cornell University. In
1913, he bought an apple and dairy farm in East Fishkill,
New York, a town in Dutchess County. It was there
that Morgenthau met and befriended Franklin and Eleanor
Roosevelt, who lived in nearby Hyde Park. As a World
War I colleague of Herbert Hoover, Morgenthau
helped the U.S. Farm Administration develop a plan
to send tractors to war-ravaged France. In 1922, Morgenthau
bought the American Agriculturist, which
he continued to publish until 1933. He served as chair
of the New York State Agricultural Advisory Committee
from 1928-1930, after which he served on the state
Conservation Commission until 1932.

In 1933, President
Roosevelt appointed Morgenthau governor of the
Federal Farm Board, and in November of the same year,
when acting treasury secretary William Woodin's ill
health forced his resignation, Roosevelt named Morgenthau
undersecretary of the treasury and promoted him to
secretary of the treasury the following year. Morgenthau
held that post until 1945. During his tenure in this
office, he became famous for resisting Keynesian economics
and raising over $200 billion through the sale of
bonds.

Morgenthau's legacy is more than wartime fiscal policy.
Although treasury was not initially involved in establishing
military or refugee policy, Morgenthau and his department
eventually played a key role in American refugee policy
when they helped convince FDR to establish an independent
refugee agency outside the state department. The War
Refugee Board, not the recalcitrant State Department,
would assume responsibility for rescuing European
Jews and would take the lead in saving as many as
200,000 European Jews. In 1944, he proposed a plan
for postwar Germany that called for Germany to be
stripped of its industry and forced to return to an
agrarian economy; although the plan was considered,
it was ultimately rejected. Later that year, Morgenthau
was a major player at the Bretton Woods Conference,
the birthplace of the International Monetary Fund
and the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (precursor to the World Bank). The week
after FDR's death, Morgenthau urged ER to continue
her political career and to speak out forcefully on
the issues, arguing that her voice was needed more
than ever in the postwar world.

After leaving the cabinet on July 22, 1945, Morgenthau
became a philanthropist and a leading financial advisor
to the new nation of Israel. He died in Poughkeepsie,
New York, on February 6, 1967.